Make a 2-minute Stylus

March 16, 2012

Transcript

There are plenty regular self-styluses to help you control your tablet or phone.
It usually cost somewhere from 10 to 30 bucks but that's way too expensive when you can make it on your own with just a few supplies around your house or in the office.
I'm Sharon Vaknin for CNET.com and today I'll show you how to make the 2-minute stylus.
We've shown you how to do this before with a sponge, a paperclip and a pen but here's an even easier way to do it.
All you need to make your stylus is a pen, a Q-tip, scissors, some tape and aluminum foil.
Let's get started.
First, remove the ink from the pen.
Now, take a Q-tip and cut it in half.
I'm gonna cut this one at a slant because the mouth of this pen is a little small.
So I'll go ahead and insert it into the mouth of the pen and take a small piece of tape to secure it.
Just wrap the tape around the Q-tip and the mouth of the pen.
Now, take a small piece of aluminum foil.
I'm just going to cut out a square or a rectangle and wrap that around the Q-tip and the neck of the pen.
Make sure it's secure so that the foil is pretty tight around the Q-tip.
Take another piece of tape and secure the foil to the pen.
Make sure the foil is touching the cotton of the Q-tip because in order for this to work, the static electricity from your finger needs to go through the foil and onto the Q-tip then on to the screen of your phone or tablet.
Now, with that in place your stylus is almost done.
I'm gonna put it back together.
So I'll take the top of the pen and secure it and the last thing you need to do is add a drop of water to the Q-tip.
That's what keeps it conductive.
So with your finger, just add a drop of water so that the entire Q-tip is just a little moist.
You don't want it to be dripping wet.
With that set, you can start using your stylus.
Just be sure that your finger is always touching the foil.
Otherwise, it won't work.
So you can tap icons, open apps, surf the web.
It's not really great for typing but it is really awesome for drawing apps.
Like my favorite, Draw Something.
If the stylus stops working, all you have to do is apply a little bit more water and you are good to go.
This isn't the fanciest of styluses but it will get the job done.
Once you make your stylus, tweet me a picture of it on Twitter and subscribe to my Facebook page for more tips and tricks like this.
For CNET.com, I'm Sharon Vaknin.